A spokesperson for the International Swimming League said that rosters announcements for American teams in the International Swimming League are expected in the “next two weeks” when asked by SwimSwam on Wednesday.
While a handful of announcements have leaked out (and in some cases, then been deleted from social media, as is the case with Bowe Becker), very little is known about which swimmers will be on which American rosters in the upstart professional swimming league. That’s in spite of European rosters being almost fully announced, and having begun with press conferences to announce rosters over 2 months ago.
When asked, the spokesperson said that they did not have more information to share at this time about why the American rosters were delayed so long after the European rosters.
So far, the only two publicly-known swimmers on ISL rosters in the United States are Becker (presuming his social media deletion was a correction of ‘jumping the gun’ and not a change of plans) and American Michael Andrew, who we presume will be a member of the New York Breakers team that he co-owns. In early April, German media also hinted that German Marco Koch, a former World Record holder, would be joining the New York Breakers.
At a press conference on April 10th, the American teams for the inaugural season were announced with the following General Managers:
- Los Angeles Current: GM Lenny Krayzelburg (Los Angeles, CA)
- DC Trident: GM Kaitlin Sandeno (Washington D.C.)
- Cali Condors: GM Jason Lezak (San Francisco, CA)
- New York Breakers: GM Tina Andrew (New York, NY)
As for the delay, Lezak, for one, didn’t believe that it puts the teams at any disadvantage. “I don’t really see that,” he said when asked at the announcing press conference. “We started this thing all in a fair playing field where we started recruiting athletes at the same time.”
While very little has been formally announced about American rosters, there are lots of rumors circulating. One of the more interesting ones is that certain teams will have very heavy roster connections to 2 of the country’s top collegiate programs, with most of the Texas alumni aggregating on one team and most of the Cal alumni aggregating on another.
European Rosters So Far:
Aqua Centurions – Rome
| Aqua Centurions – Rome | |
| Federica Pellegrini | Luca Dotto |
| Sarah Koehler | Santo Condorelli |
| Franziska Hentke | Philip Heintz |
Iron Swim Budapest – Hungary
| Iron Swim Budapest – Hungary | |
| Katinka Hosszu | Robert Glinta |
| Alia Atkinson | David Verraszto |
| Ranomi Kromowidjojo | Vlad Morozov |
| Fanny Lecluyse | Jesse Puts |
| Jessica Vall | Jeremy Desplanches |
| Kira Toussaint | PJ Stevens |
| Mie Nielsen | Arno Kamminga |
| Jenna Laukkanen | Pieter Timmers |
| Kimberly Buys | |
| Kim Busch | |
London Roar – London
| London Roar – London | |
| Cate Campbell | Adam Peaty |
| Bronte Campbell | James Guy |
| Emma McKeon | Kyle Chalmers |
| Minna Atherton | Elijah Winnington |
| Holly Barratt | Alex Graham |
| Jess Hansen | Yuri Kisil |
| Taylor McKeown | Matthew Wilson |
| Siobhan-Marie O’Connor | Finlay Knox |
| Jeanette Ottesen | Cameron McEvoy |
| Sydney Pickrem | Kirill Prigoda |
| Mireia Belmonte | Vini Lanza |
| Marie Wattel | Duncan Scott |
| Sarah Vasey | |
Energy Standard – Turkey/France
| Energy Standard – Turkey/France | |
| Sarah Sjostrom | Chad le Clos |
| Femke Heemskerk | Ilya Shymanovich |
| Emily Seebohm | Danas Rapsys |
| Kierra Smith | Andrei Minakov |
| Kayla Sanchez | Evgeny Rylov |
| Rebecca Smith | Anton Chupkov |
| Charlotte Bonnet | Florent Manaudou |
| Fantine Lesaffre | |
| Penny Oleksiak | |
| Imogen Clark | |
*AUSTRALIA ROAR
What did you expect would happen when an Aussie living in the UK is doing the signings for London Roar?
I get we’re a long way away but I’d love to have seen an Australian based team.
Roos.
very interesting to see at the end of the article with reference to teams with strong Cal or Texas roaster… I admittedly don’t see the connection or why. The team name locations is symbolic only – like the Andrews live in San Diego but run a team named New York Breakers – and these teams are not offer training facilities or staff (at least at the beginning), I am not sure what is the draw for Cal or Texas alums to be in the same team.
Of course, friendship maybe the reason but I am just not seeing that as such compelling reason.
I would assume because a lot of them still train together and/or they want to relive the college years and have more of a “team” feel than a “hired gun” fee
Agree with Spectatorn. This is just going to expose what poor business/financial sense that 95% of swimmers have. No different than any other sports league. Except in this case, the league isn’t going to put any effort into educating them – the league is benefiting greatly from the athletes’ shortcomings in this matter.
I’ll educate them. They should have formed teams in states with no personal income taxes. So Texas Florida and Nevada come to mind. New York City lol that’s not a low tax locale.
good point 🙂
In any case, I look forward to hear the roster announcement. Then we can reverse engineer the recruiting logic of each team or guess why so and so are on the same team or not. Fun time!
Texas v cal postgrad edition.
Although 1 American team is gonna be absolutely stacked with Cal postgrads, I’m fairly certain that we won’t get the Texas v Cal matchups between 2 teams, more than within the teams themselves. Also one of those teams is gonna have 3 world class medley relays (A, B, and C) and extreme depth. Needless to say that I’m super stoked for these ISL meets to start up.
Two questions.
How many are going to be on each roster?
When are the first ISL meets scheduled for?
Jeff – lots of crickets when we ask questions. Latest I’ve heard through the whisper mill, though, is that each team can travel 14 and race 12 at each meet for each gender.
No updated schedule has been released since they cut from 12 to 8 teams.
Thanks. Suggests to me that London Roar is pretty much full.
Yes, I agree with that conclusion. Though, as I understand – even among stars, there are “national team” obligations that they’re not willing to break, and therefore won’t be at every meet, so we may see some fill-ins popping up on rosters too.
Each team can sign up to 32 swimmers but only 12 women and 12 men will be chosen for each competition.
Michael Andrew has AirPods
And that’s the least surprising thing I’ve discovered today